Data replication is used to protect data from loss, to ensure business continuity and to distribute data to all points of use while keeping the total cost of ownership down. Data replication requires making copies of data from a source device to one or more target devices. Target devices can reside on the same host or can be remotely located on multiple hosts. Data replication is performed for several reasons including device synchronization, disaster recovery planning and business continuance, content distribution, backup consolidation and server migration.
Safeguarding corporate data is of primary importance. Disaster can result from electrical outages, natural disasters such as floods, tornadoes, human caused disasters such as fires, and other such events that can cause physical loss of information technology (IT) infrastructure and the data it houses. Several steps have conventionally been taken to protect corporate data assets from such events. These often include utilization of offsite backups combined with mirroring technologies, fault tolerant hardware, and data replication.
Delivering data when needed to the points where it is used can be costly and challenging. The points of use may be multiple web servers, computational cluster nodes, spatially distributed points of ingestion by database engines, collaborative servers, data brokers, data resellers, distance learning end points, communication devices, display devices, archival or backup service points. Another user for data replication is to distribute content to use locations where it is needed.